Hundreds dead as monsoon brings chaos to northern India, Nepal

By Manesh Shrestha in Kathmandu and Harmeet Singh in Delhi, CNN

Updated 4:17 AM ET, Mon August 18, 2014

Photos: Deadly floods hit India4 photos

Deadly floods hit India – Indian villagers paddle a boat through floodwaters over submerged roads in India's Assam state on Sunday, August 17, 2014. Heavy downpours have triggered flooding that has killed at least 24 people here.

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Photos: Deadly floods hit India4 photos

Deadly floods hit India – Hundreds of people die every year in floods and landslides during the monsoon season in South Asia.

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Photos: Deadly floods hit India4 photos

Deadly floods hit India – While annual rains are a lifeline for the region's farmers, flooding, landslides and building collapses are frequent during the monsoon season, which lasts from June to September.

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Deadly floods hit India – An Indian fisherman removes fish from his nets in the flood-affected village of Balimukh.

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Story highlights

Dozens dead after heavy rains in northern and eastern parts of India

More than a 100 dead, thousands missing in Nepal

Heavy rains in recent days have caused flooding and landslides across the region

Dozens of people have been killed in flooding in northern and eastern India, while the death toll in Nepal has passed 100, government officials in the two countries told CNN.

At least 56 people have died in flooding and rain-related incidents in northern and eastern India over the weekend, with 28 deaths reported in Uttar Pradesh state, another 22 in the neighboring Himalayan region of Uttarakhand and six in Bihar state in eastern India.

The heavy rains have hit thousands of villages along the border with Nepal, Kishan Singh Atoria, a regional disaster-management commissioner, told CNN Monday.

India's water resources ministry warned that the Rapti river in Uttar Pradesh had risen to "unprecedented" levels in the state's Balrampur district.

Nepal

Meanwhile, the death toll from floods and landslides in western Nepal since Thursday has reached 101 with another 126 people missing. More than 17,000 families have been displaced, according to government data.

The biggest challenge for the government of this impoverished Himalayan country now is to provide relief to the people displaced since their homes have been washed away by the rivers, said Jhankanath Dhakal of the National Emergency Operations Center on Monday.

Flooding was caused by incessant rain from Wednesday night to Friday night in some districts in western Nepal.

"Since the rainfall was unusually high the water could not flow in the rivers causing flash floods," said Dhakal. "This was unexpected."